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Intimidate states

You can use Intimidate to force an opponent to act friendly toward you for 1d6 × 10 minutes with a successful check. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier.

Success: If successful, the opponent will:

  • …give you information you desire
  • …take actions that do not endanger it
  • …offer other limited assistance

After the intimidate expires, the target treats you as unfriendly and may report you to local authorities.

Fail: If you fail this check by 5 or more, the target attempts to deceive you or otherwise hinder your activities.

Action Using Intimidate to change an opponent’s attitude requires 1 minute of conversation.

Retry? You can attempt to intimidate an opponent again, but each additional check increases the DC by +5. This increase resets after one hour has passed.

Modifiers

  • Size You gain a +4 bonus on Intimidate checks if you are larger than your target, and a –4 penalty on Intimidate checks if you are smaller than your target.
  • Feats If you have the Persuasive feat, you gain a +2 bonus on Intimidate skill checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in Intimidate, the bonus increases to +4.
    • Race A half-orc gets a +2 bonus on Intimidate checks.

Intimidate doesn't have the following clause that Diplomacy has

Influence Attitude

You can change the initial attitudes of nonplayer characters with a successful check.

The FAQ states

Fear effects include spells with the fear descriptor, anything explicitly called out as a fear effect, anything that causes the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition, and all uses of the Intimidate skill. Intimidate, in particular, is a mind-affecting (influencing or controlling their behavior) fear (create, enhance, or manipulate fear) effect

Emphasis added by me to clarify the terms using their definitions in the rules. If it indeed does work on a PC, that would mean a PC would be forced to

act friendly toward you for 1d6 × 10 minutes with a successful check. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier.

  • …give you information you desire
  • …take actions that do not endanger it
  • …offer other limited assistance

After the intimidate expires, the target treats you as unfriendly and may report you to local authorities.

Can the Influence Opponent’s Attitude section of the Intimidate skill be used on a PC?

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    \$\begingroup\$ The question of social skill use on PCs is a rather contentious one, and ultimately comes down to a matter of opinion. Voting to close as primarily opinion-based. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Aug 23, 2018 at 21:25
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    \$\begingroup\$ @KRyan The rules can be examined first in response to the question then an opinion can be offered about those rules. No reason to close the question if the rules exist, and if the rules are contentious then the asker should be told so in an answer! \$\endgroup\$
    – Hey I Can Chan
    Commented Aug 23, 2018 at 21:57

2 Answers 2

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You can use it, but they're not required to be friendly.

A coerced target acts as though friendly toward you even when you aren’t around, but the aid offered remains grudging at best. The target’s true attitude is hostile, and if the target believes it can take an action to hinder you that can’t be traced back to it, it’s likely to take such opportunities.

Since PCs are free to believe what they want, even false things, they are free to act against you by believing that actions that hinder you can't be traced back to them.

You can demoralize them, or frighten them, with appropriate actions or feats, and they can't bypass that.

In general, forcing others to behave in a certain manner in a roleplay is not ideal. If they don't make use of this loophole, you could use intimidate to gather information.

If you want useful intraparty conflict, here's a question that gives more guidance on it.

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Similar to my answer on your other question here I think the best way to approach this is to simply "actually" intimidate the PC using the character in question.

Present the PC with information that causes them to likely act in the desired fashion

If you wish to use the Intimidate skill from some minion (specifically in the case you're talking about, not the in-combat cases.)

Say you have a Gnome with high intimidate and you wish to intimidate the PC. The GM rolls secretly and:

  • Pass -> The Gnome speaks: "I've killed many before you with but a wave of my hand. You will talk or you will die as they did; dismembered in a desert far from here."

  • Fail -> The Gnome pounds his fists on the table: "You'll answer me or you'll pay dearly!"; his voice quivering a bit as he speaks.

  • Bad Fail -> The Gnome yells "Give me an answer, Anything, and I'll let you go with your lives!"

Your PCs are likely to follow your lead; but are not forced to. This bridges the gap between actually forcing your PC to do things and choice; while getting them to act in a manner following the NPC's actions/dice rolls.

Disclaimer: I've undeleted this given the removal of the RAW tag and such. I am happy to remove this again if this is not an appropriate response. The OP was edited a couple of times as I typed this originally.

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